1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatuses that allow for data stream interconnect. More specifically, the present invention relates to interposers for tapping data associated with internally mounted electronic devices.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Computer and data communications networks continue to develop and expand due to declining costs, improved performance of computer and networking equipment, the remarkable growth of the internet, and the resulting increased demand for communication bandwidth. Such increased demand occurs within and between metropolitan areas as well as within communications networks. Moreover, as organizations have recognized the economic benefits of using communications networks, network applications such as electronic mail, voice and data transfer, host access, and shared and distributed databases are increasingly used as a means to increase user productivity. This increased demand, together with the growing number of distributed computing resources, has resulted in a rapid expansion of the number of devices required to analyze data communicated in such data networks.
Monitoring, analysis, and testing of data flow typically require tapping into the data stream to capture or sample the data. Tapping into internally mounted devices, such as hard disk drive arrays or printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) arrays, can present significant challenges, however. These devices are typically mounted in a chassis frame or card cage with direct signal connections between the device (e.g. a PCBA) and a backplane or motherboard. In the case of Fibre Channel arbitrated loops there exist backplanes (e.g. JBOD (just a bunch of disks), RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Ds), or Fibre Channel storage subsystems) that allow multiple hard disks to be directly attached to the loop. However, there is no mechanism to allow tapping of the data streams in between the backplane and the hard disk.
A method for tapping into the data stream of these systems can involve the use of a device called an interposer. An interposer typically consists of a PCBA with input and output connectors that match the connectors of the device and backplane. Although data is typically communicated bi-directionally through the interposer, the interposer connector that couples with the device connector is defined herein as the “input” connector and the interposer connector that couples with the backplane connector of the chassis is defined herein as the “output” connector.
There is a continuing need for improved interposers.